


Only a Moron

by swabloo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Gen, Original Character(s), Self-Insert, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28109688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swabloo/pseuds/swabloo
Summary: and a nutcase to the suicidal degree would ever find the concept of being born into the Shinobi world as cool, or any variation thereof that somehow implies any possible positive connotation. Self-insert to a certain degree. Dark, AU.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise, I'm not dead! Got bit by the creative writing bug for the first time in almost a decade, so I figured I'd finish this old WIP, and upload the whole thing to AO3 while I'm at it :) The whole fic should end up about 10/11 chapters.

**Only A Moron**

**Chapter One**

To be reborn a Shinobi… Man, that's so cool! Right?

Only if you're a senseless moron. A nutcase to the suicidal degree. It's not fun and games, all flashing jutsu and amazing feats. It isn't _epic_. You don't get the hottest shinobi to bed and marry, become the elite and yet still be wonderful and brilliant and content.

When sharp, stinging, mother _fucking painful_ consciousness screams at you, loud and buzzing and everywhere, red and raw and _suffocating_ – the pressure building – _squeezing_ you from every angle – it's hot and wet – constricting, jerking, _traumatising –_ can't breath can't think can'tsee _can'tmove –_

Thankfully, I don't remember the rest of it; I'm pretty sure I blacked out at some point, and the rest is just a mindless blur. I wasn't born to a family, or any sort of bloodline. This was the world of Shinobi: there was an abundance of orphans.

I later found out that my mother – although I hesitate to call her so – was an average Kunoichi; single, pregnant, but oh so determined. She wouldn't let _me_ hold her down (the only reason she didn't abort was to help supply the next generation of soldiers). There came a day when she just wasn't quite fast enough, and the head injuries she suffered caused her to induce pre-mature labour, with copious amounts of blood loss and a slowing grasp on her basic motor functions. She died, twenty minutes after I'd been forcefully pushed into the land of the living ninja.

Out I popped, a healthy, if small baby: a pink, shrivelled little thing. My body was too fat and my limbs were too stubby and awkward, my head too heavy for my neck to support. I was trapped, unable to move, see, or emit any sound more complex than a warbled whimper.

Before this duly horrifying event, I can honestly say that, like most people, I couldn't remember ever being a baby; my memory wasn't quite that good. Although, I imagine that the first time round was a warm, smothering cocoon of love and a gentle, hypnotic rocking (after all, the motion still instils a subconscious feeling of familiar comfort).

This time was rather more clinical. From what little I remember, the nurses looked after me just fine; however, after I'd spent a few weeks at the hospital and had been issued a clean bill of health and vitality, I'd promptly been shipped to the closest orphanage. It wasn't abusive or particularly horrid, but unpleasant all the same. It could have been an all right experience, but I missed my family terribly, and the replacement only made filled me with anger; the loss was a near constant, aching pang – I still feel it now, you know. I shouldn't have been taken so suddenly away from them.

Of course, I didn't know it was an orphanage at first. Back then, I didn't know much of anything at all; my surroundings were barely perceivable, and any speech I did hear was foreign and incomprehensible. I knew two languages, and could recognise several others, and even manage a few words of each. This one, however… It wasn't something known to me. It sounded almost like Japanese, but the tone was off and the accent didn't match.

I took to learning with the rest of the children, trying to absorb as much as I could, albeit at a much slower pace; my mind just wasn't the same. It was filled more, with less free neural pathways available and ready to soak up new lingo. In the eyes of my caretakers, I must have been a quiet, mature child, if a little dumb with an unfortunately low vocabulary.

I was fortunate that I understood the world and people better than my peers, else I would have been completely behind, unable to understand anything; it wasn't hard, when being spoken to like a child, to figure out what the adults would be motioning to and trying to explain. I got the hang of the language within a few years.

Not long after I'd turned three (Strangely, my birthday was still the same) the population of the orphanage started to rise in unpredictable patterns; Within one week, four children had turned up, and it was five days until two children came in at the same time.

It was around this time when I finally figured out where the heck I was. Don't blame me; my realization of the Shinobi world didn't hit me as soon as I stepped foot in it. In fact, seeing as I was so young, the only times I'd set foot outside the orphanage was to crawl around and awkwardly toddle this way and that. After two years, where I'd shot up a fair bit (but still short – a vertical challenge I hadn't managed to overcome this time around) and had started being able to run and walk around, I was still only about the height of people's knees. As much as my obliviousness embarrasses me… If anyone had been wearing a hitai-ate, I wouldn't have been able to see it from my stupid angle.

"Look at that, Rijii," One of the care workers by the name of Aiko said to me one day, when the sun was burning bright and shining, the air was moist and the wind was warm. She picked me up and lifted me onto her shoulders (I was careful not to pull her hair or shift awkwardly). Making sure I was secure, she held out her arm to focus my gaze and pointed at a cliff wall in the distance. "It's called the Hokage Mountain; each one of those people swore to protect you, me and Konohagakure. They are strong and powerful; we're lucky to have had three such great leaders."

My thoughts puttered to a halting stop, shock stilling me, eyes wide and disbelieving. _Hokage… Konohagakure…_ I recognised those words. But, no… It couldn't really be possible, right? It was just a work of fiction. A silly cartoon. But… That cliff was not cartoon, and could not possibly have been drawn. It was clear in the daylight, sharp edges carved with careful precision, edges worn and weathered from age and rainwater.

I almost slapped myself at that unbelievable _stupid_ internal debate. Had being treated like a baby really dulled any possible sense of logic within me? Of course it was frickin possible. _I was three years old_. Reborn in a strange, unfamiliar land – emphasis on the _born_. I don't think flying pigs could have surprised me right then.

I looked around myself – _really_ looked, focused like I hadn't been able to with my previously bleary eyes, poor height and lack of spatial awareness. There – across the far right – a black blur as something (some _one_ , I corrected) darted across a rooftop. Coming up across the street was a tough, scarred man, wearing a khaki green flack-jacket, dark pants, powerful, purposeful stride, and – were those bandages? A… A hitai-ate?

_Shit_ , was my only coherent thought. I'm surrounded by _trained assassins_.


	2. Chapter two

I joined the shinobi academy when I was four. It wasn't some spur-of-the-moment decision, where I'd run to the building and demand tuition. In fact, I'm pretty sure the adults around me tried to manipulate me into it.

As soon as my year group was around that age, we were visited in the orphanage by a shinobi. It was a Chunin; generic, but strong, and had been entrusted in ensuring the future of the village. When he approached us, he was all bright smiles and laughing eyes; the children immediately warmed to him. I was suspicious; what was he doing, here of all places? Was this stranger going to adopt one of us?

Instead, the caretakers sat us all down and the man began talking. He spoke of duty, honour, privilege and pride. All that we could accomplish under the Hokage himself. And, even though we were only four, he told us about the payment plan; it was then that I truly saw our places in this world.

We were nothing more than investments. As orphans, we didn't have any parents to pay the academy fees. Instead, after we'd graduated, we were to give a sixth of each pay check to the Hokage and his underlings, for at least five years. Not including the already present tax reduction. Even if only one of us were to extraordinarily excel, the amount of money our government would get from all of those missions… I felt used.

And yet, I was excited at the same time. I didn't want to be a civilian; how many countless hundreds of them died in the many, many wars and invasions? I'd thought about all the possibilities and drawbacks. Being a Shinobi… It was like signing my own death warrant. I would die young; there was no question about it. Around here, hitting the thirty mark was getting unbelievably old (or very, very lucky). I would get hurt. Injured, all over, with poison, cuts, abrasions, broken bones, you name it. But still, a large, vocal part of me insisted; I thought about how I would feel if I never took this opportunity. To stand there, working a normal, humdrum job, looking out at the Shinobi, and wondering if I'd missed a fantastic opportunity.

The Chunin tested us, over the period of several weeks; they were disguised as games, quizzes, and a bit of fun. Sometimes I'd get caught up, only to look up and see the calculating gleam in the man's eyes as he watched us, seeing if any of us could have potential, to develop the ability to kill in cold blood.

Ten of us were picked, including myself, and we were quickly ushered to the academy. The classes covered normal lessons, like Maths and English; but, at the same time, there was an out-of-place syllabus, that only stood out to me because of my previous experience in schooling.

Physical education, for instance, was held for one hour, every day of the week; we were even expected to attend weekend classes, too. There was a slow, gentle introduction to weapons, where we initially would be shown images and flash cards, and have to identify them. When our teachers spoke of death and killing, it was only ever negative when our own people died; even then, I picked up a high amount of intrigue and respect when they spoke of how our enemies managed to execute the final blow. Many lessons such as war and history were so different than what I'd known, that in every lesson I felt so incredibly out of place, as I saw my many classmates absorb it all, slowly loosing their moral inhibitions in the way that our teachers cultivated and structured. The subtle manipulation of our collective psyche was, admittedly, incredibly interesting to watch, but at the same time rather chilling as I recognised it affecting me, too.

Of course, most of this was very gentle at first, but surprisingly sped up and a frightening rate, as they soon expected us to know how to handle and throw things like shuriken at the age of five.

I didn't understand; surely, our movements were too awkward and our fingers to slow? We needed _time_ to properly absorb all of these new reflexes. It was startling to find that our class was slowly becoming on par with that of one two years older.

It all had a reason, of course; the war with Iwa was going on, bloody and brutal, and it was the academy's job to churn out as many soldiers in as little time as possible. Each year they became more efficient at cramming in the education, and people were graduating younger and younger. Those with any hint of potential and genius were pushed so hard that they were entering the war at the ages of eight, seven and six. I was one of those, thanks to my heightened awareness and ability to perceive the world around me, as well as being able to grasp harder concepts a lot faster than my piers; the fact that I was very mature counted very well, as I would always be able to follow instructions as they were given. And, at the age of six and a half, I graduated the Shinobi academy.

Despite being mentally older, the test was horribly difficult; moreso than what I remembered from the manga. Although, luck was on my side, as I found using chakra far easier than any other student in the academy.

It isn't boasting, being arrogant, or some strange super-skill, but rather experience. Everyone else had been born with chakra, was used to it, and passed it off as something that had always been there, feeling it as if it were simply blood flowing through their veins. Except, I'd never felt anything like it before, and I was painfully aware of the coils as they developed and grew within me. Chakra was foreign to my mind, and so I could always instinctively tell wherever it was, the quantity, quality, and exactly what it could to; to me, it was such a tangible thing, that manipulating it was so obvious. To others, it was like grasping at water; for me, the streams of chakra felt more like thick, prickly, obtrusive ropes, where grasping at it was uncomfortable, but easy to do and grip onto. My chakra muscles were constantly flexing, and it became a nervous twitch, as my mind tried to cope.

I practiced every night; pulling at the chakra, drawing it through my coils and pushing it out towards my hands as my fingers fell into well-practiced position and something _surged_ – I felt it prickle – sometimes _burn_ –

\- my skin splintered, something shattered and broke – something pressing the air out of my lungs – whipping past my face – being squeezed at every angle –

\- And then, with only a displacement of air, my whole self had pushed its way through time and space, swapping places with an old, chipped log.

I fell unconscious the first time that happened; I woke up in a hospital bed the next day, bright eyes and energetic, ready and terrified to try it all over again. I was lectured, of course; I was only five, what was I doing, practicing jutsu by myself?

It worked, though, it's why, that day, so many years ago, I stood before the teacher's desk; unable to see over the mahogany wood, with my arms outstretched, reaching for the heavy weight of a Konoha hitai-ate. It was too big for me; The metal plate was made to fit the forehead of older people, and so it was quickly slipped around my neck in an attempt to protect my vulnerable throat, rather than my vulnerable head.

I turned – looked back at a class full of joyous, excited children – and my blood turned cold at the calculating gleam in the teacher's eyes.


	3. Chapter three

The day was a fresh one, bright and breezy, the scent of spring spicy against the morning wind. As I entered the Shinobi Academy once again, I ruffled my hair back into place, shifting the short, choppy locks. Approaching what used to be my classroom, I felt an uneasy sense of dread; this was it. Shit.

The door opened smoothly, my teacher already sat by his desk and waiting for me. He turned and smiled, shuffling his papers and squinting at the top.

"Ah, Rijii!" He greeted, looking back again at his paperwork, "Alright, it looks like… Well, your new team is already waiting for you at training ground six. You're looking for Nara Nakamura; he'll be about my height, black hair and dark eyes. Good luck, Rijii."

I looked back at the class, still full of new Genin waiting on their new sensei's, and wondered; how many of these children, ranging from the ages of seven to ten, would live through the next year? The thought saddened me, but as I walked to the meeting place, I fell in step with determination; I was _not_ going to die young. I _would_ find my family again.

A jolt of chakra sped through my muscles and my left shoulder jerked slightly, tension rising as I could now make out the tall form of my new sensei. This was it…

Two boys, who looked to be about fourteen, stared at me with scowls on their faces. So far, not so good. The redhead was quite lanky with dark eyes, although no freckles marred his skin. His shirt and pants were of mottled greys, dark ninja sandals separated by long, winding bandages, which were surprisingly fresh and white. Much like his partner, a kunai holster was strapped to his left leg and a pouch at his back. The other boy had mousy brown hair and watery blue eyes, with a rather prominent nose and high cheekbones that pulled at the skin, causing him to look slightly gaunt and underfed. Our sensei had a mess of black hair pulled tightly against his scalp into an equally messy horsetail, wearing the standard Jounin uniform. There was a grim turn to his face as he studied me, eyes boring into my own.

Redhead scoffed. " _Rookie_. Try not to get us killed."

Nakamura rolled his eyes to the high heavens, flicking the back of the boy's head. "Leave it, Takeshi." He turned back to me again, "Welcome to team twenty three. I'm Nara Nakamura, your new sensei. This," he gestured to Redhead, who scowled, "is Takeshi. And this," he motioned to the other boy, "is Shiro." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Shiro also narrowed his eyes at me, a dark look haunting him.

Takeshi seemed like he was about to explode into a burning rage, but stopped himself as Nakamura frowned at him again, who continued to speak. "You'll have to come an hour early to practice, and stay for at least three, if you want to catch up. I expect you to work Thursdays with me too, and I'll have no complaining. Understand?"

I nodded, trying to keep my face as unemotional as possible. A week ago, when our Academy teachers had figured who would go on which team if they passed the exam, had given us all our own timetables that were unique to each team. According to mine, Thursday was supposed to be our day off. My team started training at eight in the morning and finished at three, with the next hour left to do a simple D class mission. I'd glanced at several of my classmates schedules, and I'd seen one student with a schedule that started at five in the morning and finished at one in the afternoon; we'd been given these schedules beforehand, in order to familiarize ourselves with our new regime. I still felt incredibly enthusiastic about mine, as I seemed to have lucked out slightly with a more even schedule. (Although, it had probably been fixed that way to allow for extra training before and after, seeing as I was technically only six and really, desperately needed to catch up to my team mates).

I definitely wasn't going to miss that Thursday off. For the most part, most of the past six years had been this muddled, incomprehensible slop with little to no activity until I joined the academy. Even then, the only new things I learnt were the language, and how to apply myself better to being a shinobi. I'd been so bored in the maths classes, that to suddenly be given a challenging workload was enthralling. It wasn't like I'd be given the weekend off, either; for shinobi, there was no weekend. There was no Christianity to dictate that Sunday should be the Lord's day, and only civilians got the last day of the week off; shinobi couldn't afford to not take missions during those days, and it would have been suicidal for every ninja to be off duty in such a predictable pattern.

"Alright," my new sensei motioned to his regular students, "You two, I want you sparring, taijutsu only. And help each other out, yeah?" The boys nodded, moving swiftly down the field to begin their practice. "Rijii, you and I will be doing our own little practice, okay? Don't worry; I'm just going to see what level you're at now, so just try your best, okay?"

"Okay," I replied, readying myself in the standard academy stance as my teacher dropped into a similar position. In some ways, the following two hours were incredibly embarrassing, as whenever we sparred Nakamura was so obviously holding back. Although I had a good grasp of the taijutsu, and could perform the moves as best as my young body was able, my reach was too small to do any sort of damage against a man as tall as he.

Nara was pleased with my chakra usage. "You're very efficient," he commented, eyes gleaming as he calculated the best ways to use my talents. (Not that I had any worth boasting about, but as my teacher, he would probably try to do as best he could with what little he was given).

"Nakamura-sensei," I began, as we were taking a break with bottled water at ten in the morning, "Why… Er, why do my team mates hate me?"

Sensei sighed, looking down into his water as if held the answer he sought. "It's… Well, it's not complicated, but… I'm sorry, Rijii. You know you're a replacement, right?"

I nodded. In this time of war, it was incredibly rare for a team to be made from all fresh Genin. Those that graduated were usually sent to complete teams that were missing a member or two; it filled out the numbers without separating already existing team mates, and gave a higher chance of survival to the rookies, as they would be surrounded by more experienced Genin.

Nakamura continued, "Our third team mate died two weeks ago, and the boys have been grounded in the village since. We couldn't do missions beyond D rank without a full team, so they've been thinking of nothing but her. You've… I am sorry, but I'm afraid they probably only see you as if you're taking her place, and to them, it'll mean that she wasn't valuable, but easily replaceable. This is the first time they've lost someone close to them since the start at the war… It's incredible that, really, but unfortunate for you, I'm afraid. You represent the emotional pain that they're going through, and the idea that they're all replaceable, too – don't get me wrong, that isn't actually true, but it's the way they feel right now. I'm sorry you had to get caught in the middle of it, Rijii, and I'll try to curb their emotions as much as I can. Just… Don't mention any of this, okay?"

"Of course," I replied, shitting myself inside. I couldn't help but think that maybe this was a really, really bad sign for the start of my shinobi career.

"Come on," Nakamura-sensei said as he stood with a stretch, "I'm going to start you on the tree walking exercise. I'll guide you through the basics, and –"

"I've, er, already done that, sensei."

"Oh?" He asked, a quirk to his grin. "Really now?"

"Er, yeah – I, uh, saw some other shinobi do it a while ago, and managed to do the same thing…" If by "other shinobi" I meant the Naruto anime. It had felt like a bit of a necessity at times; for some reason, I was far more susceptible to the chakra within my own body, probably because to my mind, it shouldn't belong there. If at any time I used even the slightest bit more chakra than necessary, I'd feel the excess energy jolting through my limbs, causing that appendage to either jerk, twitch, or have a nasty, stinging sensation. When practicing the tree walking, it had caused my legs to be filled with a pins-and-needles sensation so strong that I couldn't move for hours for the horrible pain it caused, and once I could get up they'd been numb for the next three days. That had been a terrifying period of my new life, as I'd had to be incredibly aware of everything around me; one wrong move, and I could have really hurt something without noticing it for hours. It was an experience I never wanted to repeat.

"How about water walking?" I shook my head no. "Okay then. I'll show you how to start that, and then I'll go train with the boys. If you need any help, just ask."

Oh yeah. My first day of training was _brilliant. /sarcasm_


	4. Chapter four

Eyes bulged, mouth gaped, blood spilled. It spurted like a fountain – all red, red, red. The bandit was dead, dead, dead.

I stood by the caravan, still frozen. Fear gripped me, everything trembling, my hand grasping the kunai so hard that it began to cut into my skin. All the bandits - only three – had been despatched, quickly and efficiently, while I had just stood there. Doing nothing.

Useless.

Knowing I would have to kill one day, reading about it, learning how to do it – it was all so completely, utterly different to facing it in real life. I felt odd. Numb. I'd been apprehensive, of course, when our team had taken that C ranked mission. Nervous, even; but not really scared. I had training. I had teammates. I was mature and worldly experienced – more so than any other from my graduating class. I could deal with a C ranked mission. I could deal with bandits. Right?

But I had been so, so wrong. Sensei had known about them before they attacked – how could he not? He was a Jounin. They were rogue bandits, stumbling about the bushes with knives and swords. When they jumped out at us, we attacked. Well, my teammates attacked; I threw a kunai, and it attracted attention. One of the bandits noticed me – saw the too-big hitai-ate – and figured me as the weak link. He grinned and leapt (probably thinking of using me as some sort of hostage against the superior ninja) but as he leapt, he wasn't fast enough. Just as he reached me, Nakamura sensei stabbed him in the neck with his kunai.

It wasn't glorious. It wasn't epic. There was no flourish – no heroic action. There was no evil in the bandit's bulging eyes as he died in front of me. Just a man, murdered.

It wasn't a clean death – it hadn't meant to be; sensei had just reacted to an opponent aiming for his student. The first thing in his hands had been a kunai, and he had used it quickly to pierce the main artery that throbbed underneath the skin. It took a few moments for the man to die – he gurgled, blood bubbling where it escaped. It wasn't like falling asleep; his eyes seemed to scream at me, and his whole body spazmed, chest heaving as it tried to suck in air that ran away with the blood. Eventually, he stopped. Everything stopped.

The rest of the bandits died, Takeshi and Shiro killing one each. I stared at the bandit; he was just a man. What had he done? He attacked innocent people. But he was a _man_ ; someone's son. A son they'd never see again; a son they'd never bury. What if he was a father? Oh, God. Oh, shit. Shite. Shit. Dead. Dead. Dead.

I'd never before seen anyone die. It was – weird. Nothing really happened. The skies didn't darken; it didn't start to rain. No one did a sad, good-bye monologue. It was a clear day, the sky was bright. I didn't feel guilt or remorse; and, horrifyingly enough, I didn't even feel sad or scared by it. His death just seemed logical. If he was still breathing, then he was still a danger to me and to the mission. Why not kill him? It was easy enough. He wasn't my friend, I didn't know him. He didn't belong to Konoha.

I felt shocked; but as I stared at his corpse, my shaking slowed down to a stop. I stared. I'd never seen a dead man before.

Sensei Nakamura approached me, after checking on the boys. "Are you alright, Rijii?" He understood the importance of the first death.

"I – yeah," I said, unable to take my eyes off him. Every muscle had slackened in the slump he fell in. The eyes looked the same, but unfocused – no _life_ in them. I pondered on the corpse; we were the same, weren't we? Only my chest was still moving. His wasn't. It stayed still, unlike the blood that continued to seep into the grass.

"How long will it take for him to bleed out?" I asked, startling even myself with the question, but it was all I could think to say. Only one cut, and he died. It was so horribly simple. (And yet, I couldn't stop picturing myself doing it. Instead of sensei, I was the one holding the kunai – I was the one that lunged it into his neck. And then I was the one dying, and I was standing over my own corpse, laughing. So easy, my imagination mocked. So simple. One cut, and bang. It's over. You're dead! Just like him. Just like the girl you replaced.)

My mouth went dry, and then my sensei answered, a grim turn to his lips. He and the boys took the corpses into a pile and burned them. And then – we left, continuing on our mission. The civilians were shaken up, and they stared at us children in horror. For us, it just seemed so _simple_.

* * *

_How are you feeling?_ Uh. Fine.

_What do you see in this picture?_ A… Face? Smiling. Laughing.

_And what do you see in this?_ Oh. He's on the floor. I think he's bleeding.

_And what do you see in this?_ A man being stabbed.

_And what do you see in this?_ A lizard.

_A lizard?_ Yeah. But it's ripping someone's face off.

The psychiatrist was boring. She asked me the questions nicely, but it seemed like she was bored of it. Like she'd tested loads of pre-pubescent kids to see if they'd snap. I already knew that I had a morbid imagination – how could I not, with all the conditioning that the academy and further training had done? But by my own answers, I knew they could be a lot worse. There had to be other Shinobi that saw worse pictures than mine (it scared me a bit to realize that in a few years time mine would be just as bad, too.)

Nothing happened after the evaluation; no straight jackets, no white, padded rooms. I was just given a lollipop and sent straight back on missions. None of them were ever quite as bad, though; apparently, Nara Nakamura had a daughter, so he was a bit sentimental. I never had to directly fight any of the enemies myself (of course, it could just be that since I was still so small and weak that I'd probably be more of a hindrance than anything.)

I went home, still living in the orphanage until I saved enough money to buy myself a flat (it didn't matter that I was only seven. I was a Shinobi; old enough to die. Old enough to kill). I boiled some water, made some tea and drank it with a biscuit. It was frighteningly normal, and a small part of me found it hard to believe that everything and everyone could just carry on with their daily routines when a man had just died and I'd seen it. The larger part of me – the rational part, the mature part, the shinobi-trained part – just laughed. How self-centred. How arrogant. To think I really mattered, in the large scale of things. What was I? A pawn. A _weak_ , useless pawn. I wasn't Hatake Kakashi, a genius from a genius family. I wasn't Uzumaki Naruto, destined to great things with demons falling in my wake. I wasn't even Haruno Sakura, lucky enough to know some of the most powerful and influential people.

I was justu Rijii, a little Genin nobody. I needed to train. I needed to be prepared. I needed to be strong.

I don't want to die.

I sipped my hot tea, and marvelled at its normalcy.


	5. Chapter five

By the time I was eight, Nakamura-sensei seemed to have lost what made him think of me as akin to his daughter. I was a soldier in his eyes, and as I grew stronger – albeit still painfully behind my older, taller, physically stronger teammates – I also became more experienced, and we'd been going on progressively harder missions. Missions that held more responsibility, more meaning to the war effort.

By the time I was eight, I'd made my first kill. It happened only a few months after my first C rank. We'd been on patrol with several ninja, and we'd come across a few rock shinobi. I killed a boy genin, just a few years older than me. Maternal instincts, mentally retained from memories of being older, screamed at me; it was loud and terrifying. I found myself with a silent retching yell caught in my throat, although for the live of me I couldn't have let it out, even if ordered to. I remember that he had light brown hair, but I think I blocked everything else out. Death was still horrifying. My teammates seemed to have no problem in thrusting their own jutsu and kunai. For the first time, I wished that the mental conditioning in the academy had worked better on me too.

I almost died a lot, too; a kunai narrowly missing my jugular. A shuriken almost impaling my eye. I broke my collarbone. Someone else broke my arm. I bled, and it was terrifying.

Despite near constant training, my body couldn't go under too much strain without permanent damage. I was still too physically weak, but I need to get stronger; a small curling dread inside of me whispered that I would die soon if I didn't, but at my age and lack of experience (Because a year, really, wasn't nearly enough), there was only one way that I could do that; somehow, I had to learn how to infuse my body with chakra.

I suppose I'd gotten the basics down already; after all, tree and water walking were pushing chakra down into my feet. At least I knew how to move chakra around my body.

It was hard; I knew it would be, and all the complications that could possibly happen if I tried to continue on this line of thought. But I had to. I tried it with my legs first; after all, I already knew how to push chakra down there. I read about anatomy, about chakra systems; I asked medic nin and nurses. I didn't even try before I'd studied it for many weeks. Thankfully, I had an advantage; as I'd already found out before, I was all too painfully aware of my chakra, so I knew how much my coils and muscles could take before it was dangerous. Pushing my chakra down my left leg, I tried to enforce the muscles – only for my leg to spasm dangerously, the surprise of the shock (even though I'd been expecting it) causing me to lose balance. Sitting on the ground, I carefully massaged my leg; Thankfully, I'd only used slightly more chakra than what my legs could use at the moment, so everything seemed to still be working fine. Now that I was no-longer at the academy and taking regular missions, I couldn't afford to cripple myself – not like the time where I'd tried to learn water-walking and, despite my far-above average chakra control, still lost the use of my legs for two straight days. They'd just been too painful to move, and my feet had gone numb.

Despite the consequences, I knew that I had to keep pushing. I'd figured out a few after I graduated why, exactly, I had this problem; I didn't know why, but for some reason any time I used my chakra – be it for jutsu or genjutsu – the only chakra actually taken from what I used was the exact requirement, nothing more or less. It was all relative; using the kawarimi used varying amounts of chakra, depending on how far you wanted to switch, or the size of the object you were switching with (you used more chakra for the greater the difference between you and the object you were switching with). If I used the same amount of chakra I'd use to kawarimi for twenty feet, but only kawarimi'd for ten feet, then my jutsu would only take the required energy out of what I'd given, and then expel the rest back into my system. This was where I was different; for everyone else, it seems, their wasted chakra just expels outside of their body. It was like there was something forcing my chakra to stay inside of me (and I often wondered if this was because, to my subconscious, chakra should not really be there to begin with). Coming back into my body, though, wasn't nearly as clean as going out; it was wrong, for lack of a better word, and it affected my coils enough to affect everything around it, including the muscles, ligaments, and nerves. If I put too little chakra into my jutsu, then instead of just not working (or working weaker than I'd intended it to), the chakra went straight back into my body if it didn't meet my directed requirement, acting the same way as if I'd over-extended my output.

Chakra-enforced attacks, however, came with even greater problems; it wasn't just passing back and forth through my coils as it normally did. Doing this, there was a chance that I might irreparably damage my muscles; but I had to keep pushing, and endure the pain, because the more chakra I used enforcing my attacks, the more they'd be able to endure in the future. It was like punching a tree bare-handed over and over again to break the bone of your knuckles, so that it could re-grow stronger and denser than before.

For me, it was a long and slow process; I hardly wanted to damage myself. It would take a lot longer than the two years it took Sakura to do it in the manga. By the time I was eight, I'd only just started the long and painful path.

By the time I was eight, however, not all news was bad. By the time I was eight, I knew that the end of the Iwa-Konoha war was in sight, because by the time I was eight, I saw Hatake Kakasahi for the second time.

The first time I saw him, and recognised him for who he was, I was walking down the opposite end of the street. He looked to be at least a few years older than me, although he was already wearing a Chunin flack jacket. What caught my attention was the brilliant shock of off-white hair, and then my gaze moved down and I almost stumbled.

Kakashi had two, whole, non-sharingan eyes. There was no scar; no tilted hitai-ate. He was still wearing a black mask, although no bright orange book could be seen on him. He didn't look at me once, although for that I was thankful. His eyes reminded me too much of the bandit's dead stare from my first C rank mission.

A cold shock slivered down my back when I saw who was sitting next to him; the messy, bright blond hair could have only belonged to one person. Namikaze Minato – the man who I knew I would soon be calling sama. Unlike his student, his entire countenance was kind, and despite not even standing anywhere near him, I felt put at ease, and could easily understand why he would be made Hokage. Even though he was only eating dumplings, he seemed to draw the attention of everyone around him. Like the sun, as bright as his hair, everyone gravitated towards him. Without even seeming to, he managed to command their respect. I couldn't help but stare as I walked past, and his warm brown eyes locked onto my own and winked. I blushed, embarrassed for being caught, and quickly tore my gaze away, walking faster than I would usually have done. I saw him smile, and knew what he was thinking – a little girl, in awe of the Yellow Flash, aptly named as he was. I never forgot the warmth in his eyes.

The second time I saw him was at the memorial stone. I always went there after I visited my mother's grave. I may not have known her, and she hadn't raised me, nor even emotionally cared for me, but she was still my mother, and from my past life I remembered my own. I went to see her every month, paying my respects to the woman who bore me into this strange, foreign world. I left flowers, but I picked the kind I knew my mother from my previous life would have liked. At the grave, I paid my respect for the kunoichi, but I mourned for the family I'd lost; when I was five, and able to go by myself, I often spent a long time there just crying, letting all my stress and tension out, trying to release all my pain, worry and sadness into the corpses around me. After a while I stopped crying, but I still vowed never to forget my real family. I was good at drawing people, and as soon as I'd been able to pick up a pencil I'd drawn them as best as I could remember – but even then, they only barely looked similar. Without the pictures I found it hard to think of their faces, and people and places from my past life blurred.

When I went to the memorial stone, at first it was to try and understand the kunoichi that brought me into this world. Why? Why would a woman feel it more important to sacrifice herself for Konoha, than save herself for her child? Back then, I'd hoped for some sort of answer, perhaps even an explanation as to why I, of all people, had come here. Eventually, I stopped asking that question, although the habit was ingrained in me and after I went to the grave I couldn't stop myself from going to the memorial stone. I was in a war, and every time I went more names were written. I was in a war, and so every time I went, I wondered when my name would go on it. And I wondered if, when the time came, I too would feel it was worth giving my life for this village.

I was almost eight when I saw Kakashi for the second time, although he didn't see me. He stared at the stone with only one eye (and what I guessed was Obito's name). I knew there was a scar underneath the lopsided hitai-ate, and while I was glad that an end to the war was in sight, I couldn't find it in myself to feel happy about it. Kakashi just stood there, only this time, instead of just his eyes, his whole body seemed to be dead. He just slumped, grief weighing down his whole spirit. I left almost as soon as I came. After that day, I stopped going to the memorial stone so often, although whenever I passed by, I couldn't help but wonder if I too would die before the war ended.


	6. Chapter six

I was eight years old, and I was terrified.

Bloodshed and battle raged around me as I leapt, ducking behind a scattering of large rocks. Shuriken hurled past me, clanging against the stone. Terrified, I jerked my whole body back – just as a blade lightly nicked the side of my hitai-ate. That was way too close!

Counting to ten, and pleading for my pounding heart to settle down, I peeked out from behind the rock to catch a glimpse of the battle. It was a strange sight; my first of a rather epic battle. Sure, I'd definitely dabbed my hand in a fair few – how could I not, with a war going on? – but it had never been anything like this. My team wasn't at the league of what team seven would be – so ridiculously powerful that they faced s-class nin on a regular basis. No, I much preferred the "ninja" way of fighting; quick, sudden, and largely a game of tricks and traps.

I was pretty sure this was going to be the last major battle of the war. It wasn't naïve hope that made me think this way, or even just desperate pleadings to any deity that might be listening.

Normally, Shinobi fights were quick and barely seen, and went one of two ways; either one side was more powerful that the other and got their enemies good and quick, or one side took the more tactical approach and either ambushed their enemies unawares or laid traps to get them quickly, or employed any number of 'dirty' and unfair tricks. Of course, sometimes the shinobi they tried to ambush or trick were actually so good that they managed to get passed it all and take them out quickly anyway; when a Shinobi was good at their profession, they were good, and that always meant being more than just a powerhouse that knew a lot of overwhelming and deadly jutsu.

Sometimes though, the battles were more even. If the combatants were at more equal levels in skills and expertise and even just in sheer experience, it was hard for one side to quickly get a 'one-up' on the other and they usually ended up facing each other head on. This could mean that those who employed traps and tricks and the more tactical side of being a shinobi were especially good at it and managed to keep it up and their opponent was the same way, or their opponent's skill level matched their own and they kept meeting in deadlock until one of them managed to slip something by the other. Of course, more often than not, it just meant that they'd go toe-to-toe in a mixture of hand-to-hand combat whilst employing swords, kunai, various miscellaneous weaponry, and jutsu.

Only in occasions when opponents were more evenly matched did fights last longer. In my case at the moment, this fight had already been going on a long time; for at least two hours. This battle I was in was more like the kind of battles of war I knew of back in my original home world; people went forward to fight and retreated, medics on either side assisting when they could.

In my home world, a fight like this could last days, even weeks, with each side keeping behind trenches half the time. It was true that we had trenches, and the distances between each other's ones was vast, but Shinobi were quicker and deadlier overall and progressed the battles a lot faster.

We were actually fighting on neutral territory; over the war, camps of Konoha shinobi had been spreading out and moving further towards Iwa, running more patrols and engaging more actively against their enemies. None had moved out of Konoha territory though, still within the borders of Fire Country; however, as Iwa were the aggressors in the war, they had of course been planning it a lot longer and had already moved a lot further and closer to us, with more people stationed within neutral territory.

We were actually just on the edges of Fire country, and so could go back for reinforcements. Unfortunately, so could the Iwa Shinobi, but that was because they'd progressed with a lot of bases of their forces nearby. In fact, they had called for reinforcements as soon as the fight had begun.

This had all started out rather simply, actually. A team from Iwa had crossed a patrolling team from Konoha, and they'd fought – being evenly matched enough that each team leader had been able to send someone to go fetch the nearest reinforcements.

This large-scale battle was formed from a series of coincidences. If the two teams hadn't started fighting in an area where it was quick to reach support for both sides, then one team would have easily been the victor. But both Iwa and Konoha had managed to get another team for reinforcement, who had again sent out for more reinforcements, who had then seen the scale of three teams from each side fighting each other and decided to just keep going and not stop until as many shinobi nearby as was possible could come and fight.

As close to Konoha as it was, it should have easily been a Konoha victory, but what we hadn't known was that almost all of Iwa's forces had been closing in on the village anyway and were all stationed close by, positioned for a direct attack against the village. That's how the large-scale Shinobi fights usually happened.

My team had been brought in an hour into the fight, and I knew it would be the end soon since my team had practically been in Konoha – ten minutes after I'd set off towards the fight, the village would have been warned, and forces were being sent off as soon as they were able. ANBU on duty came first – the quickest of the lot and already fully equipped. Quite a few stayed behind of course – with a few Chunin in order to keep a high guard on the village.

Even though I'd found out about the fight after it had been going on for an hour, I still didn't get there for another twenty minutes. The ANBU had arrived fifteen minutes after my team did, and reinforcements started showing up at the two hour mark.

And the reinforcements meant that the Yellow Flash would be joining in, since he'd been in the Village last I'd heard. I knew this battle would be the last big fight that would end the war because almost every shinobi of each village ended up fighting in it.

I was right – after counting to ten again and rolling out of my safety to throw more kunai, I glimpsed a flash of yellow from the corner of my eye and suddenly there was bright yellow everywhere and almost before I could register it, Iwa Shinobi were being cut down left, right and centre.

It was a massacre.

I could see why Minato Namikaze would be remembered for a long time yet in Iwa, and why already they feared him; he was like an unstoppable force. Flash! You're dead. Flash! He's dead. Flash! She's dead. Flash! Flash! Flash! And they're dead, too.

Now that he was here, I felt a wave of attention shift towards him. Iwa ninja were frantically trying to organise themselves into formations and traps that might catch the legend of a man. But Minato lived up to all his hype and butchered any enemy that stood in his way.

I took the opportunity to move, and swiftly made my way alongside the battle, throwing kunai at any enemy which was focusing on the Yellow Flash. Well-known men gave impossible advantages to their side; rather fighting evenly like before, all the enemies would try and focus on just one man. But this wasn't a fair fight; just because you pick someone to fight with, it doesn't mean that no-one else will try to fight against you at the same time. So whilst the Iwa shinobi became suddenly preoccupied with trying to get a handle on the force of Namikaze, the Konoha shinobi attacked everyone whose back was turned or was paying the slightest attention to Minato, rather then putting their full focus on their own fights.

I ran and threw and stabbed and spat fire into people's faces, all the while unable to stop myself from staring in awe at the Yellow Flash when I stopped for cover. Men like him could turn the tide of war in just a handful of minutes.

A large hand gripped my shoulder and I span around, moving to take out a kunai – and looked up and saw my sensei. He looked grim and tense, but a sense of relief swept over him as he looked me up and down and saw that I wasn't fatally injured.

He gave a quick glance to the battlefield and sighed, looking back at me and crouching down. From his pouch he drew a bandage, and started wrapping it tightly around my upper arm.

"It'll do for now to stop the bleeding," he said, and gave me an encouraging smile. Startled, I looked down at where he was wrapping it, and saw a deep red soaking my sleeve and dripping down my arm. Bright red blossomed on the first layer of the bandage. I noticed the width of his work, and saw the wound that ran from almost my shoulder to almost my elbow. A dull ache in my arm set in as I stared. I hadn't even felt it! When had that happened?

"Don't worry," Nakamura-sensei said as he noticed my expression, "We'll get you to a medic soon. It's fresh enough – you won't even scar."

"Oh. Right," I said, and felt a sudden appreciation for the aesthetic side effect of being able to use chakra intricately to heal people. They could easily heal a surface wound like that without a blemish if it was done not long after the injury happened.

I looked back up at the battlefield, and saw the Iwa shinobi already cut down by half. I saw all the corpses – still moving and twitching and writhing and bleeding out – and smiled. Good. It would all be over soon.


	7. Chapter seven

"Well hey there! You're a little one. What's your name?"

I looked up. And up. And blushed.

Blonde hair and blue eyes stared down at me. It took a few seconds for it to kick in exactly _who_ had just sat next to me in the tea house with a cup of his own. He took a sip. And I stared.

"Uhhh." My mind went horribly, suddenly blank. God Damnit. I'd heard about this.

Our relatively new Hokage had a habit of chatting with shinobi he hadn't met before. It was some kind of "getting to know you" thing of his that forced his unnatural cheerfulness on emotionally stunted people in an effort to create a bond between – well, master and servant, sort of. The Yondaime Hokage liked being on good terms with his people.

He was a good man, with a soft spot for little kids. Which meant visits to the academy whenever he could manage it and – yeah, if he spotted a little girl with a hitai-ate slung around her neck sitting by herself over a cup of tea, he probably _would_ stop and say hello.

You know. Just to check that being forced through a bloody and brutal war at such a young age wasn't causing her to contemplate suicide or something whilst tucked away in the corner booth staring moodily at hot water.

"Rijii," I said, and found myself unable to maintain eye contact. I looked back down at the residue of leaves floating slightly at the bottom of my cup.

The man leaned forward with a warm smile, clasping his hands together. "You're a Genin, right? How old are you?"

"I just turned nine," I said, then blushed and looked back down at my tea. Again. Stupid hero worship.

He grinned. "Wow! Genin at such a young age – that's really impressive."

It wasn't. Not really. By the end of the war, everyone was graduating at least at that age. But – he might have noticed that I'd been a Shinobi for a while already (maybe noticed me before with my Hitai-ate, and subconsciously filed away my face in his memory). Actually, of course he knew – one of the first jobs as a Hokage was to be able to recognise every shinobi under one's command (at least, that's how we did it in Konoha).

Damnit, I thought again. He didn't have to talk to a little girl like this. I looked back up at him and caught his smile. He was such a nice man.

I looked into his blue eyes and stared into them for a few seconds, trying to take in everything about him.

Damnit. He was such a kind man. And he was gonna die soon.

I looked back down at my tea. "Er. Thanks."

"You okay? How's life been treating you lately?"

I shrugged. "It's been alright," I said, and thought about how Kushina would be pregnant right now. How far along was she? Did this man beside me even know that he was a father yet?

And then I thought, _I will never get to speak to this man again_ , and figured I'd kick my mind into some sort of motion.

"Why did you become Hokage?"

He tilted his head at me a little bit, contemplating the question. "Because I could," he answered honestly. He smiled again. "Because I love you," he said and it startled me into looking back up at his face. "Because I love that man sat over there. And I love that woman behind the counter. And I love that mum and her little boy walking just outside this window. And I love that little boy's dad, and I love his mother's dad too. And I love the kids that little boy will have, and the people they'll meet and fall in love with and have kids with too. I love the peeling paint on this building's walls. I love the fresh smell of the market first thing on a Saturday. The sound of people running on the rooftops. The way my window catches the morning light and wakes me up before I have to. The sound of the woman I love snoring in my ear."

He smiled again and took another sip of tea. "Rijii, I became Hokage because I love all of Konoha and everyone in it. Even the people I don't like. Because even if I don't like them, there's still something about Konoha that those people love.

"It's the one thing that every Kage of Konoha has to have in common." He winked at me, "And, you know. It's thinking about that love that gets me through all the paperwork."

And then he patted my head. "Well, I've got to go. It was nice meeting you, Rijii."

"You too," I said, and watched him as he left, having drained the rest of his tea and leaving his cup next to mine.

I sat there, more than a little bit stunned. No wonder he was still talked about as like the greatest Hokage ever long after he'd died, even though he wasn't one for very long. I found myself hoping that I could learn to love Konoha even half as much as him.

Seeing him made me think. It was early august, and the only real date I knew from the manga was Naruto's birthday. I looked at his cup and frowned. So, what – he only had about two months left?

I felt odd. I _knew_ when someone I'd met was going to die. His death had never felt like that of a real person – it was a heroic legend from a story book, and event that just _happened_. In the run of things, it would be important that he died for his village.

But, still. It felt wrong, to have that piece of information. And terrifying. Me, being here, at this time – what would happen if I accidentally changed anything that would affect that? I was only one little girl, but every action had a consequence. And each of those consequences led to something else. Life – fate – was a domino affect of different choices. What would happen if I made the wrong one?

But – no, there wasn't anything I could _really_ do to predict the far-reaching outcomes of any of my actions. The only thing I _could_ do was use my best judgement and just hope for the best.

I took another sip of tea, and thought about Minato's kind eyes and gentle smile. Thought about what kind of person he could have become if it weren't for a nine-tailed demon fox.

I sat there until I finished my tea, already feeling grief for his passing that was soon to come.

* * *

I looked up. And up. And swore in Spanish.

And then English, too. And German. And whatever Japanese-hybrid language Konoha had going on.

I didn't know how to express what I was seeing. It was big. And red. And absolutely terrifying.

Even before I'd glimpsed it, fear had speared through my very bones. The air cloyed with a macabre density of horror. I couldn't breath. My heart hammered in my ears. I lost my sense of balance and the world went dizzy. The only thing I could hear was the blood rushing through my veins.

The ground didn't shake. It felt like it shattered – like hell itself was about to split open beneath us. An earthquake that rattled our very cores – a force that belied the term _natural disaster_.

Kyuubi.

I looked around, at grown men three times my age, tough and hardened warriors. We were all scared.

And then – the initial moment of panic and _holyfuckingshit_ stuttered, and people started to realize what was going on; we were under attack. By the _mother_ biggest demon of the lands.

And then, Shinobi started doing what they were trained to do. I saw them go – Jounin, Chunin, ANBU alike – rushing forward to meet the bijuu in an effort to stall it, to give everyone else enough time to just _get away_. They ran towards the towering monster, each one fully aware that they would die.

I was horrified, and turned to look at my sensei (anything not to look at the unbelievable scale of disaster that happened in the monster's wake as it began to destroy our home with just a footstep).

Nakamura-sensei looked at all three of us, a hardened glint of _something_ in his eye. I couldn't look away.

"I – do we – " started Takeshi, and his mouth stayed moving, but he was unable to get anything else out.

Word had gotten around to trust that the Yondaime would find a way to get rid of the monster, and that it was up to us to save everyone else by stalling the beast to give the Hokage the time he needed.

Our sensei looked at us, his gaze softening. "No. You – no." He gathered himself, clearing his throat. It was hard enough to hear him over the sound of fighting and screaming and dying and exploding rubble and buildings being torn down. "We're just a Genin team. You guys – there's nothing you could do."

It stung, a little. But it was the truth – we _were_ still just Genin. Admittedly, Takeshi and Shiro were sixteen now and long overdue for being promoted, but neither had been field promoted during the war, and we'd been far too busy during it to prepare for any exams. We'd spent the time afterwards bringing me further up to their level so that we could all go in together and all likely to be promoted. We were actually due to take the exam in November (Sensei had laughed, and said that after surviving a war we were more than ready to be Chunin, and that we already _were_ Chunin in everything but name).

"Let's follow some invasion protocols," Sensei continued, "and get as many civilians to safety as we can. We're probably one of the strongest teams not having a go at the monster right now, so we'll be scouting the most dangerous areas – the closest and most recently damaged ones. That red chakra is pretty deadly, so we need to act fast and find as many survivors as we can."

He was saying all this as we moved, fast towards the great looming beast. My heart went into my throat, and I tried to ignore my basic survival instincts of _run bitch, that's the goddamn Kyuubi for Kami's sake,_ and ignored the waves of killer intent from the demon, focusing on the task at hand.

Sensei took a sweeping glance of the area we were running towards (deadly close to the long red sweeping demon tails). "Alright, routes 4AC and channels six through nine look best. You don't have time to personally escort everyone you come across, so dig them out of the rubble and guide them through the safe paths with a bunshin – the more solid the better, try and give it a little bit of punch so it can protect the civilians at least a little."

He gave us directions, and I took off alone towards the west. The goal was to direct the civilians to the nearest entrance to the underground tunnels that served as escape routes from the village and the last line of survival in the circumstance of an invasion. They were built the same time the Shodaime grew the trees- they were a twisting maze formed out of the roots from the giant trees, solid and sturdy and could take solid hits from chakra better than any building. They also absorbed and deflected bijuu chakra – extra helpful in a situation like this, although I couldn't help but think that the random contingency plan of 'protect Konoha people from big demon attack" had probably seemed a little far-fetched at the time of its creation.

I found an old woman trapped under a fallen archway, and carried her off with an earth clone, closely followed by the old woman's son and his wife. The wife was terribly burned over her chest and arm, but there wasn't anything I could do at the moment. There would definitely be medic nin in the underground, so hopefully she'd find someone soon.

I found a man that I couldn't move from where he was stuck. A young boy with his chest caved in. Two young teenage girls sobbing over their mother, half-melted and still oozing with malignant red chakra.

There were shell-shocked in the streets that I managed to get going and guide them with just an illusionary bunshin.

I didn't think I'd find many more survivors.

There was a woman, with green eyes barely visible through the strawberry blonde hair that fell about her face in choppy waves. They were wide and unseeing, and as I gently clasped her arm she shuddered, clutching her bundle closer to her chest.

The woman stared at me, and the bundle squirmed, making a small, soft whimper.

"It's okay," I said, holding my hands up in a non-threatening manner. "You're both okay. I can show you to the nearest underground tunnel –"

" _No_ ," The woman choked out, cutting me off with a look of someone broken and desperate in her face. "I – I _can't_."

"But – your baby –"

The woman stepped forward suddenly, and I quickly fell silent. I'd already found people who had gone mad from exposure to the demon.

"It's my husband," she said, head turning back to look out frantically in the distance. "He's – he's still at home, over there –"

' _Over there'_ was the direction of the Kyuubi. There was a tragic sort of hope on the woman's face, and my words stuck in my throat.

"I can't – can't leave her alone," she looked down at her baby, soft look hardening in determination as she glanced up at me through maddened eyes. "But she's not alone anymore – she's got you!"

"Me?" I said, startled, and didn't realize until too late that the mad woman could take that statement as acceptance of what she'd just said.

And she did; the woman nodded, and thrust the bundle towards me, where my hands were still palm-up and non threatening. I had to grab onto the baby, otherwise she might have actually fallen. After checking the baby girl was okay – even if still whimpering – I saw the woman still staring at me with wide eyes. Okay. This was creepy.

"You'll look after her," the woman said, honest belief in her conviction.

"But I'm _nine_ ," I tried to say, but she didn't listen.

Then she thanked me, and she seemed suddenly calmer and less mad. "Thank you for giving me the chance to find my husband." She smiled at me once, a broken twisted sort of grimace that held a lot of heartbreak. Then she left.

And I was left in the middle of the street, standing alone and holding a baby.

And then a voice was coming in over the headset, telling me to get my ass out of the danger zone, because the Kyuubi was heading back in my direction.

I spared a searching look towards where the mad woman had run off to, and weighted my chances. No, I couldn't risk a baby like this – I could only hope that the woman would be okay. And maybe she'd find her husband in all this mess.

The baby whimpered and turned in towards me, reaching out with chubby little fingers. They'd be wanting to return to an alive baby, I thought, and set off for as far away as possible.

But – I didn't go underground. I didn't want to miss this.

After a while of running as fast as I could with a baby in my arms, I stopped and ran up the tallest, closest building. I sat down, and rocked the baby in my arms. Her face was small, green eyes wide and red rimmed, silent tears tracked down her pale cheeks. Even she could feel the terror in the air, too scared to sound anything more than a soft, weak whimper. I held onto her tightly, burying my face into her blanketed belly and tried to inhale the smell of life. For one endless moment, I felt the weight of the demon's presence become too much. It roared loud, a deep rumbling laughter that pierced my heart to hear it. I couldn't understand how something so _monstrous_ existed.

In the distance, an enormous toad leapt towards the giant fox. I could just about make out a speck of bright blond hair.

And then everything went dark, and I saw Death.


	8. Chapter eight

The next couple of days after the demon attack weren't pleasant. I was one among many whose job was to clean up the mess; I spent long hours getting rid of rubble, bloodstains and unrecognisable once human remains that still lingered with the sense of that horrid red chakra.

I threw up a few times during the process; still shaken from being in the presence of an overwhelming monster, I felt like I'd been hit with the flu every time I encountered the remnants of its chakra. It seeped into the buildings; it stained all those who'd been near it and defiled the dead.

None of the able shinobi got much, if any, respite; our population was decimated in a way I'd never seen before. Ninja and civilians alike were ashes, or melted or burned or twisted in death.

For the first time, I understood how so many could have lost so much to one enemy. And a small, self-disgusted part of me understood how people reacted the way that they did to Naruto.

I hated myself for feeling sympathetic to anyone that would mistreat a child; and yet, my reaction to him was so _sudden,_ I almost couldn't believe it had happened.

I saw him three days after the attack; I was transporting medical supplies through the hospital, when I passed a door that made me stop. I looked inside, and there he was; a baby, one of many in that room. But immediately, I knew it was him. As soon as I'd gotten closer to him, I'd _felt_ the demon's chakra – it _clung_ to the kid, cloying in the air, infecting everything around him. Not enough to _warp_ anything, or to change anything, or to be destructive; I could tell straight away that it was harmless to others.

And yet, it was still _terrifying_. I felt sick just looking at him; my gut reaction wormed its way up my throat and my vision blurred. I gasped, and stumbled backwards, having to clutch onto the doorway. All I could hear was the sudden thrumming of my heart inside my ears and all I could sense was the heavy oppressive cloud of horror that swelled from the baby and it was so incomprehensible, to _feel_ all of that disgusting thick chakra and yet see a baby just _sleep through it._ My senses panicked and flared uncontrollably and suddenly it was all over me – its claws were digging into my skin and I could feel it ripping through my throat and burning through my head and _I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe –_

I woke up with my sensei bent over me, face panicked and worried. I squinted up at him through dizzy eyes and tried to ask him what the hell had happened, but all that came out was a croak and the feeling that I was going to vomit.

I noticed then that his mouth was moving, and tried to concentrate through the ringing in my ears.

" –shit, _shit,_ Rijii, can you hear me –"

"Aeurghuhm," I managed to blur out through my lax lips. "whu hahpeh..?"

He sighed, relieved at the spark of coherency in my eyes as they focused on him. "Don't worry," he said to me, "you're alright now, you've been seen to already by the doctors."

That was when I noticed that I was on a hospital bed with an IV drip hooked into my arm. I grimaced, and started to work the pins and needles out of my arms and legs.

"How long have I been out?" I asked, once I sat up and had some water.

Sensei threw his head back and laughed in relief. "Oh thank Kami! For a moment there, I thought you wouldn't be able to speak properly."

I stared at him, and still didn't comprehend. Thankfully, he started to answer my questions.

"You've been out for almost a week."

"You're kidding," I said. "What happened?"

Sensei sighed. "It's a long story..."

And then he filled me in on what I'd missed since I'd been out of it. A lot of the mess from the attack had been cleaned up; they'd already begun rebuilding, and the civilians had been let out of the tunnels (they'd been kept there so as not to go face-to-face with all the gory consequences that demons bring with them. Plus, it was always mandatory to keep them secure for longer after any issue, just in case there was ever any sort of follow-up.)

Then sensei told me about the rumours that had begun about how the Kyuubi wasn't really dead after all, and how it was hidden amongst the babies, just waiting until it regained enough strength to strike again. My sensei told me how all of that was apparent nonsense, however, as the Sandaime Hokage had needed to step in to address the rumours and set the record straight about how we now had a Jinchuriki in our village. It was weird; it seemed to me that knowledge of Naruto's existence as a demon carrier hadn't been intended to be known, but someone had leaked it, and the Hokage's announcement was just an attempt at damage control. Unfortunately, the rumours had already spread and mutated, and doubt and fear were already prevalently directed at the baby.

Then sensei told me about my particular predicament. Apparently, they'd been keeping the baby incognito with the rest of the orphans. There _had_ been (and probably still was) an extensive ANBU guard around the boy (well, as extensive as it could be after the attack) that would intervene if any threat was made towards the baby.

My sensei gave me a stern look. "Why did you never tell me you were a chakra hypersensitive?"

Unfortunately for me, I was chakra sensitive to certain extremes; I wasn't like a chakra sensor, I couldn't detect it from long distances or be able to discern its nature. I was, however, extremely _aware_ of chakra in any way that interacted with me or my senses. Any minor imbalance to my system was met with extreme prejudice; some sort of mental block just _wouldn't_ play nice with chakra. Moulding it was like reaching for a rose and feeling only the thorns, and hoping that practice would harden my skin. _I_ knew that this was because of my previous existence without any trace of chakra, and then suddenly having an integral integrated impact with its entirety. Since I'd become a Genin I had become better at dealing with it; My control necessitated such precision that I was now generally able to use it without such drastic consequences to myself anymore.

It used to be that the slightest imbalance of moving chakra down my leg would turn it completely numb and useless and intensely painful as if all my nerves were constantly set on fire. And now, apparently, my condition wasn't quite the secret I had hoped it to be.

"Oh," I said. "Uh. There's a name for it?"

" _Yes_ , Rijii. And it is an extremely _rare_ condition. That I could have helped you with. Why didn't you say anything?"

I knew why I'd never mentioned it, of course. The only reason _I_ suffered from it was because I was originally not from this world. At least, that's what I'd always thought; if it was an actual known medical condition, maybe I had even more rotten luck than just being dropped into all this ninja business in the first place. Or maybe all the others who'd had it had come from other worlds too.

"I dunno," I muttered, "I've just always had it. It didn't seem like I should bother anyone with something I could handle."

My sensei rolled his eyes. "Dear Kami, save me from mindless Genin." He frowned at me again, but it lost its edge under the worry. "It could be really dangerous, Rijii. People who weren't careful enough have died because of it."

I looked down at my hands as they twisted in the hospital blanket. "Sorry," I mumbled. "I'm really careful, I swear."

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "It's okay, we'll figure something out. It's just such an unknown condition that no one's really sure what to do with you. I think the last known people to have it were all hermits. Or monks, or something. Although, there was a konoha shinobi who got it a while back as a result of some head injuries. Tsunade's not here right now, but before she went she left a copy of her notes from her work with the guy. You'll be fine, we can go through all of that."

"It's okay," I said, a little startled, "I'm not going to die from it anytime soon; I've managed my condition for ages now."

"You almost died from it already, Rijii," he said, and explained to me what had put me into this hospital bed. Apparently, even though the Kyuubi was all contained in that one little baby, its initial presence had still been quite powerful, and demon chakra was more pervasive than anything else. My sensei reckoned that some of the rumours had started because the chakra sensitives in Konoha could still feel the Kyuubi so strongly.

"The Death God used his powers to trap _the_ nine-tailed demon," he said. "That's a lot of energy going around; when that much power is put into one tiny place, it doesn't just disappear so easily. Every use of chakra leaves a residue, of sorts; admittedly, it's not one we can usually sense. But these particular powers were just so intense – it was like, instead of waiting for one drop of spilt water to dissipate back into the air, there had been a humongous raging storm that left residue the size of a lake. Normally, even a hypersensitive wouldn't notice that single drop of water as they stepped on it. But when you got close to the Jinchuriki it was like you stepped right into the middle of the lake, and the current was so strong that it pulled you under. It was like your whole system reacted to the chakra and – well, to continue the metaphor, you were drowning in it. I think your heart stopped. Luckily, the ANBU were right there, and you were already in the hospital, so they managed to get you to the medics in time."

He seemed a bit pale, and I noticed his hands clenched tightly. I wondered if he'd lost anyone to the Kyuubi attack and was reliving it through me. It was probable; I think everyone who had anyone lost someone that night.

"So then what happened?" I asked.

He shrugged, slouching. "Mahh. I think all the residue is gone by now. The Hokage took precaution from your reaction, though; I've noticed a perimeter around the kid from which all chakra sensitives have subsequently been subtly directed away from, just in case."

I frowned. "But we're sensitive in different ways."

"True," he said, "but you became overwhelmed because of close proximity. It could have overwhelmed their senses, too."

"But didn't they notice the chakra was right there anyway?"

"No; their senses were pretty burned from being near the Kyuubi in its full form during the attack. I don't think any of those sensitive enough to get past the muting seals around the kid are recovered enough to be precise in pinpointing his position."

"But... If it was muted to begin with, why did I have that reaction?"

"You didn't need a map to find the lake; you stepped into that lake without meaning to. The others just couldn't find the lake on the map."

I groaned and lay back down, mumbling; "Sensei, you always use such long metaphors." The brief adrenaline that had hit my system from waking up without knowing anything had already ebbed, and I felt fatigue sweep through me and went back to sleep.


	9. Chapter nine

When I was finally out of the hospital, and the medics were reasonably sure I wasn't about to keel over at the slightest hint of chakra, I met my team in training ground three. I wanted to say it was a miracle that we'd all survived the Kyuubi, but really, we were just disproportionately lucky. Lucky to still be genin during the attack, lucky to be ordered to help evacuate civilians. I tried not to think about the shinobi that literally melted as they threw their all into slowing down the beast; the sight and smell of their charred, shapeless remains as I cleaned up the streets would forever haunt me.

Nakamura looked at us, and tried to smile, but I could see the soul-deep weariness in his eyes. In some ways, he'd been lucky too; the Nara forest was on the opposite end of Konoha from where the Kyuubi had struck. A lot of his clan had survived, unscathed. His daughter was safe.

His wife was still missing, presumed dead. She could have been any number of the ruined corpses we'd helped to dispose of, and he'd never know.

"Right," he said, opening up the bag he carried and staring into it. "Good news and bad news. Good news, you've all been promoted." From inside the bag, he tossed us each a chunin vest. And then his eyes softened, and so did his smile, and for a moment it felt more real. "Congratulations team twenty three, really. You deserve it."

Despite being a ninja, Takeshi didn't even catch the vest. He gaped, stunned, as it hit him in the chest and fell to the floor. "What? But - What?"

I agreed. "But the exam is next month," I said, stunned.

Nakamura sensei nodded. "Yes, that's the bad news. Too many Chunin died defending against the Kyubi. We need to fill the ranks, and Konoha can't wait a month."

"Oh," I said, and looked down at the vest in my hands. My fingers clenched; I thought the fabric would be rougher, somehow. But it wasn't - it was a weird material I couldn't name, but it felt tough and somehow slick, like it had been oiled. It was hard to grip, and my fingers slid along the seams. It felt heavy in my hands but light when I put it on, the weight evenly distributed, balanced around my soft spots. The material was stiff around my neck - I gripped around it, and it felt like the inside was hard, like metal. It looked as stiff and perfectly pressed on as it had when it was folded neatly in my hands; like there was some kind of plating all along the contours, shaping itself in stiff perfect lines.

Oh, I thought. It's not just a vest; It's armour. That makes sense.

I felt the weight of it hang, hot and heavy around my neck

* * *

The next few weeks were filled with long border patrols and even longer nights alone in the library. The city needed its shinobi out there at all times, now more than ever; we didn't want to risk any of our enemies taking advantage of this devastating attack to try to deliver one of their own, while we were limping, weak and wailing. It was exhausting, but after every shift I found myself among the books - I almost couldn't help myself; with my new promotion, it was like a whole new world had opened up to me, as the chunin section of the library finally let me through.

The library had long been a point of contention for me; I could maybe have understood If you needed special permission or security levels to access certain areas - but the only blockade was the damn _Chunin_ exam.

"I don't get it," I'd said, when I was six and still attending the academy, trying to find more books about chakra theory so that I could get some greater understanding of what was happening in my body, and in this strange world around me. So after school I'd gone to the main shinobi library, and was uniformly denied.

"Sorry kiddo, no can do. Can't let you in, you're just an academy student."

"But I'm learning to be a shinobi? We've already had some lessons on Chakra. I just wanted to find another book - I've already read all the ones in the school library."

"Not until you're Chunin, sorry."

And - not until I was _Chunin_? That didn't make any sense! _Maybe_ I could understand waiting until Genin. But not even _then?_

It turned out, it wasn't about ability, or security clearance, or anything else like that. No, at the end of the day, it was about the same thing that the whole system was reinforced around. It was about loyalty.

"When you're a genin - that doesn't mean much, in the scale of things," Nakamura sensei explained to me not long after I'd joined his team, when he realized that as a clanless orphan, no one had gotten around to telling me yet. "It means you have the basic skills, that you can be a Shinobi. But a genin is a genin - whether you've just graduated or been one for six years, it's the same position." He took a drag of his cigarette, and let it out slowly. The smoke mingled with the shadow of the tree we sat under, taking a break from our morning training. Smoke danced among the flashes of light that slipped through the leaves.

"When you're a genin, you're still a student. You're either in a team of three with your sensei, or you're in the corps, with your team supervisor." The smoke lingered. "There's a reason we don't just promote someone to Chunin based on skill alone, you know. You need to demonstrate other qualities; leadership, teamwork, creative thinking." He took another drag. "Chunin means you're not just a student anymore. You can take orders, and give orders. And Chunin, ultimately, means _loyalty_. It means you've proven yourself, in one way or another, as strong, capable, and loyal to Konoha. To be a Chunin - _that's_ when you're a shinobi of Konoha."

"But we get our headbands when we graduate, when we become Genin. They told us we were shinobi, then!"

Nakamura chuckled. "Yes, and then you were given a jounin to babysit you. What does that tell you?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Oh," I said, as understanding dawned. "Genin - that's an apprenticeship title?"

"Exactly. Some Genin go to jounin sensei like you, when they show not just promise, but compatibility - when it seems like you'd benefit more than others from one on one tutoring at a specialized level. Other Genin go to the Corps, we're they're managed in greater teams at first, before interning at different key departments around the city. Either they find a position they excel at - or a department that just needs their assistance - or they prove themselves in other ways, and might later even be taken on as another Jounin's apprentice. Either way, the key thing about being a Genin - all Genin - is to be given more specialized training."

"And when you're Chunin? Why does that mean you can suddenly use the shinobi library? Why can't I just look at the lower level stuff, when I'm a Genin?"

"Ah, when you're Chunin - that means independence, that means you're really a Shinobi now. You're trusted to be able to train yourself - to continue your own training, find your own specialization; to seek out the additional resources or teachers you might need. Inside the library, there aren't any restrictions, Rijii. It's not like missions - they don't classify jutsu scrolls or history books by rank. What would be the point? Why would Konoha limit her forces - stop shinobi from learning what they can? No, that wouldn't benefit Konoha. The Shinobi library is the ultimate compendium of the knowledge we either created or stole - it's there to benefit everyone; we want all our shinobi to improve as much as possible. So when you're there, you haven't just proven that you can be trusted with the information; you need to have also proven your ability to critically self analyse - you can't just blunder about, declaring you're the best, and going straight to learning S-rank level techniques. If you were always demanding to learn high level jutsu before you were ready - well, then you wouldn't be a Chunin."

I thought about it. "So If I _am_ Chunin, I can just - go up there, and start reading, I don't know, the hidden secrets of sealing from Uzushio?"

Sensei snorted. "Would you?"

I grimaced, and thought about all the _math_ involved in sealing. "Uh, probably not."

Sensei nodded. "See, it's not so bad. Everything appropriate for pre-genin is in the academy library; and anything else below Chunin, that's for Jounin supervisors, or other shinobi, or your clan to teach you."

I mulled everything over. Was learning new techniques really that easy? It was hard to believe that as as basically, well, as a shady, assassin-fueled military dictatorship, that they weren't just - I don't know, hoarding their knowledge, classifying it to hell and back. Did i really only have to just - what, ask? And not be a dick about it?

"Sensei," I asked, and turned up to him with wide, pleading, eyes. One of the few benefits of being reborn - I was actually aware of just how cute I was, at my age. "When can I learn how to make an earth clone?"

Sensei snorted, and snubbed out his cigarette. "Not until you can water walk without limping at least, kid. Come on, break's over, let's get back to work."

I followed, slowly stretching, and started making _plans._

* * *

Eventually, sensei dragged me out of the shinobi library by the scruff of my new Chunin vest. "Seriously kid, go home and get some sleep before you fall over."

"But there's _so much to learn_ ," I whined, desperate to get back to the books. It was more than I ever could have imagined - what the shinobi library showed me, really, was the _depth_ of this world. The kind of stuff a kid's tv show couldn't show you; trade routes, migration history, archival documents from the founding of Konoha.

There were even notes on Tsunade's famed chakra strength technique, which i devoured with a fevered intensity. It turned out that people weren't knocking down mountains left and right not because they specifically needed to be her apprentice to learn how - and retrospectively, I could understand how silly it would have been for konoha to metaphorically shoot itself in the foot by limiting who could learn such a devastating technique; no, the fact was that it was almost _too_ difficult for anyone to actually learn. The problem lay in the chakra control needed for the technique; it couldn't just be good, it had to be near perfect - within one percent. Because this wasn't just channelling chakra down your limbs and through your fist, but making the chakra move with an _explosive_ force. One wrong move, and you'd blow your whole arm off.

Blankly, I thought about how long I'd been attempting to teach myself an approximation of this technique. For the first time, I felt truly grateful to Kami for my chakra hypersensitivity; it doubled as a warning for whenever my chakra reached the limit of my control, which apparently, had prematurely stopped me from permanently disabling myself dozens of times.

… _This is why Genin don't teach themselves techniques_ , I thought with a stunned, helpless humour. _Man, Genin are idiots_.

Parts of the library were also filled with things I really wasn't expecting, such as actual jutsu on how to deal with ghosts, and demons, and souls, because apparently those were real, quantifiable things here? There were scrolls even talking about the afterlife! Carefully preserved copies of Nidaime-sama's notes on the development of his edo-tensei. Which, obviously, involved crossing the border between life and death - and this was the kind of stuff people in this world just _knew_ about.

It was bizarre. I'd noticed, of course, that people invoked the name of _kami_ , that throughout konoha there were different shrines to gods, to spirits. But when people spoke of making offerings to the dead, they meant it literally. While there might be spiritual debate on _which_ gods were real, or mattered more, or what actually happened after you died - there was no debate about the soul, about the existence of an afterlife. It was just a widely accepted fact.

And who could argue? Demons, spirits - and Nidaime sama calling back the souls of the dead. Which meant they continued to exist, and had to be called from _somewhere_ , where they had previously existed, whole.

My past-life atheist self found it all very hard to get her head around. And made me wonder: Was this one of the reasons people were just - ok with killing? With shinobi in general? Because death here was hardly a finite thing - it was objectively not the end. So killing was just - it was bad, sure, but it wasn't as taboo as it had been in my past life. Here, it wasn't seen as the absolute end. Not even the worst thing you could do to someone.

Or maybe I'm just too white, I thought, as I stumbled back into the orphanage. For all I knew, other cultures back in my world had equally complex and accepted ideas about death and spirits.

And - maybe it was because I'd fallen asleep thinking about death, demons and rebirth - but when I woke up, my first thought was _green eyes_ , and i thought, oh, that baby. Her mother. And I realized that I had no idea if either one was ok. _You'll look after her_ , the strange woman's voice echoed in my mind and damnit, if I didn't feel terribly guilty for having no idea how they were.


End file.
